Back in June ’06 Jeff Howe wrote an article for Wired Magazine >here< that defined crowd sourcing for many folks. Photographers were already living with the consequences of fast, ubiquitous, nearly free delivery of high quality photos but wait, there’s more. The barriers for entry have collapsed in all creative service industries.

The smart move is to find a path forward that takes advantage of the Wisdom of Crowds thus immersing your brand in the culture’s needs and wants. The less smart move is to get angry because your world has changed.

The real question for me is how does this effect creativity in the big picture. My auto response tells me that with increased competition the career creatives will need to step it up. Some will give up. Either way it has produced a level of anxiety that has rarely been felt in the creative service industries.